


Finding Life

by PhantomFlutist



Series: Error!AU [4]
Category: VIXX
Genre: Alternate Universe - Error (Music Video), Gen, M/M, Mentions of Cancer, Panic Attacks, idk what i'm doing okay, science-y mumbo jumbo, this fic wasn't supposed to exist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-14 22:23:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11217465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhantomFlutist/pseuds/PhantomFlutist
Summary: Hyuk has finally discovered what is causing the Black Lung, and he would do anything to stop it.





	Finding Life

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, sorry for the month-long wait. My coping skills have been suffering lately. But I am getting back in the game and I promise that I will have more fic to share in the very near future. Tentative posting schedule for the next month [here.](http://phantomflutist.tumblr.com/post/161898580087/for-those-who-have-been-wondering-where-i-went-and)

 

Hyuk adjusts the lapels of his suit jacket, glancing up at the glowing numbers above the door. Fourteen fucking floors to go.

Beside him, Hongbin shifts his weight and rubs his hands very obviously on his slacks, and even if Hyuk hadn’t been present for the argument about it he would be able to tell that Hongbin does not want to be here.

But he had to come. His…unique situation…is part of the reason that they’re here. Hyuk has to do this, and he had to bring Hongbin along because if they’re not believable…the whole country continues to die for no reason.

“It’s going to be fine,” Hongbin mumbles, mostly to himself, Hyuk thinks. “We’ve done harder things than this.”

Hyuk snorts a little, says, “Speak for yourself. My entire existence hinges on this.”

Ah yes, and that’s the other thing, isn’t it? They’re both illegal cyborgs walking willingly into a government building. What could go wrong?

The elevator doors slide open and Hyuk sees Hongbin hesitate but they step out together, suits and ties and official-looking briefcases, chins up like they know exactly what they’re doing and they’re meant to be here.

There’s a bot sitting at a large metal-and-glass desk just a short distance from the elevator bank. She stares unblinkingly at them as they approach. It gives Hyuk the creeps; he’d forgotten how unnerving a bot’s glowing blue eyes could be.

“Can I help you gentlemen?” she asks. Her voice is soft and high but her speech is slightly off, like she can’t get the rhythms just right. An older model, then, likely made by a company that wasn’t as proficient as JF Industries.

“We have an appointment,” Hongbin tells her. His smile is shaky at best, not that it matters much.

The bot just smiles back at him, finds his name in the system, leads them down the hall and lets them into a small sitting room.

Hyuk sinks into one of the creaky leather chairs feeling like his bones are a thousand years old. At some point between the discovery and managing to get this meeting all of the thrill wore off, and now he’s left just feeling tired. Everything in him wants to solve this, to save the world and to know that even if he never remembers who he really is, this is how his country will remember him. But this is the culmination of everything he’s worked for the last four years. After it’s over, what is he supposed to do next?

Hongbin sits next to him, perched on the edge of the chair. He laces his fingers through each other, starting a familiar stretch.

“Everything is fine,” Hyuk reminds him, just to fill the silence.

Hongbin’s gaze snaps to Hyuk’s face and some of the tension melts out of him. “I know,” he says. “I just…don’t do well with new places.”

Hyuk doesn’t have anything to say to that, so instead he just pats Hongbin’s knee consolingly. He honestly wonders if it was really wise to bring Hongbin here. He could have come alone. He might not have been convincing enough, but he could have come alone.

The door opens and a woman—perhaps late thirties, with long, naturally dark hair pulled up into a severe ponytail—steps in. Hyuk distantly registers her tailored pantsuit, the diamond ring on her left hand, the practical pearl earrings in her ears. She holds out a hand for Hongbin to shake, and then Hyuk. Perhaps she can tell that Hongbin is older, or perhaps it was only that he was slightly closer to her.

“Sit, gentlemen, please,” she says, waving at the chairs that they just vacated when she entered. She sits across from them, lays a tablet on her primly crossed knees and eyes them for just a moment. Her gaze is shrewd, assessing, and Hyuk can tell that its intensity makes Hongbin uncomfortable from the minute way he shifts in his seat. “My assistant tells me that you were rather urgent about scheduling this meeting. So tell me, what exactly is this about?”

Hyuk takes a breath and scoots forward in his seat. He makes eye contact with her and holds it as he says, “I’m a scientist. For the past four years, I’ve been researching the components of our current air supply. As Chair of the government task force charged with finding the cause and cure for the Black Lung, I thought it imperative that I bring my findings to you.”

One of her finely manicured eyebrows lifts towards her hairline. “I have connections with a thousand scientists,” she says. She taps her long nails against the screen of her tablet. They’re electric blue. “You think that you can bring me any information that I don’t already have?”

“I do,” Hyuk says. He can’t tell her that he had Wonshik hack all of the government labs, that he knows their researchers are useless and that their work hasn’t yielded any results at all. He can’t tell her that they weren’t even looking in the right place. What he can say is, “I made a discovery by accident. I was experiment with some compounds when…I’m sorry, it would be easier to show you my research.”

She waves an imperious hand at him, and so he opens his briefcase and pulls out his tablet, accesses the relevant work and holds it out for her. She spends several long moments perusing the information, her nails clicking against the screen softly as she scrolls. He can tell the moment that she reaches the discovery, and it brings it up again, the giddy disbelief that’s written all across her face. She looks less severe and serious now, and Hyuk finds himself smiling right along with her as her red-painted lips pull up at the corners.

“The water,” she murmurs. Her eyes meet his again, and he can’t help how eager his nod is. “My god, I can’t believe that we never realized this before. How many lives could have been saved?”

Hyuk doesn’t know. He can’t even begin to parse the answer to that question, but then he’s not sure that anyone really wants the answer. “I only want to help,” he says instead. “Put me on the team that’s assigned to solve this.”

The severe look is back, and she eyes him up and down. Even dressed like this, with his hair slicked back, Hyuk knows that he looks like little more than a child. But then, children are not children for as long as they should be in this world. “You ask a lot of me, Mr….”

“Kim Hyuk,” he tells her, and for some reason it rings truer than it ever has before. That’s not who he was, but more and more it feels like who he is, and he’s beginning to feel alright with that.

“Mr. Kim, you must understand that it is not only my decision to make. Chair of the task force I might be, but to put a civilian into a government lab without proper clearance...if something were to happen, it would be my job on the line.”

Hyuk nods, folds his hands together on top of the briefcase in his lap and tries to look trustworthy. “I understand that, Ma’am, but I also must remind you that I’ve already done the impossible. In comparison to finding the cause, finding a way to stop it should be easy.”

One side of her mouth quirks up and her head tilts slightly and she says, “You have a lot of spunk, Mr. Kim. I will do what I can.” She turns to Hongbin, eyes him the same way that she eyed Hyuk earlier and asks, “And you, Mr. Lee, was it? Do you come begging for a government position as well?”

It surprises a snort of laughter out of Hongbin, who quickly flushes and ducks his head in embarrassment. “No, Ma’am,” he says. Hyuk can’t help but find it funny, the amount of respect that Hongbin gives her when he’s nearly old enough to be her father. “I’m here in case you didn’t believe him.”

She uncrosses her legs and leans forward in her seat. Hyuk’s tablet is still cradled in her hands, but she isn’t looking at it any longer. “Do you have further information that could be of use to us?”

“No,” Hongbin says. His fingers twist together, so tight it looks painful, and though his knuckles are white and probably shaking, his voice is steady. “I am the further information.”

She doesn’t say a word, just arches one eyebrow at him and waits.

Because Hongbin looks on the verge of a panic attack and Hyuk knows from experience that Wonshik is the only person who can really calm him down, Hyuk takes over for him. “Hongbin is immune to the Black Lung.”

She sits back again, waves a hand like she’s physically dismissing his words. “That’s impossible. No one is immune. He’s still young; he likely just hasn’t gotten it yet.”

“I’ll be fifty in a few months.” Hongbin’s voice cracks through the room like a lightning bolt, stunning all three of them into silence for a moment. He swallows thickly, his throat working like he’s trying to force down something too large, and adds, “I’ve already surpassed the average life expectancy. Hyuk has been…he’s been testing me. For weeks. I’m immune.”

“That’s impossible,” she repeats, sounding a little out of breath.

Hongbin lifts his chin, steels himself in a way that Hyuk has seen him do only a few times. This is important to him; perhaps more important than it is to Hyuk. “I watched my parents die of the Black Lung. And then my cousin, and my own _wife_. And every time I sat by and did nothing, because I was convinced that there was nothing that could be done. Every single time I watched someone I loved die and I knew in my gut that I would be next, but it never came. There were times when I wished for it, but still it never came.”

She stares at him, her eyes slightly wide, her breath too fast. Hyuk catalogs this information and wonders if she’s remembering her own experiences. Everyone has at least one; every person on this earth has lost a loved one to the Black Lung.

“Until recently, I have been very reckless with my life. If I was susceptible to the Black Lung, if there was any chance that I could have contracted it, I would have by now.” Hongbin falls silent as he finishes, staring down at his hands and twirling his wedding band around and around on his finger.

Hyuk sits forward, saying, “Minister Choi, I understand that it’s hard to believe. But my research is solid, and the results are undeniable. If we can find out _why_ Hongbin is immune, perhaps we can find a way to cure the Black Lung.”

Her posture is failing, her shoulders slumped against the back of her chair. “And you would consent to be a research subject?” she asks Hongbin.

Hesitating, Hongbin’s hands still in their restless movements and he says carefully, “If I were granted certain…stipulations. Immunity from prosecution regarding anything they might find while studying me. Then I could agree.”

“What are you implying, Mr. Lee?” Hyuk can tell from the shrewd look in her eyes that she has a very good idea what Hongbin is implying. She would have to be an idiot not to, and she is clearly many things, but an idiot is not one of them.

Hongbin’s right thumb starts kneading roughly into the palm of his left hand. He doesn’t get spasms in that hand anymore, not since Hakyeon updated his hardware, but it must be habit to massage it when he’s in stressful situations.

“I’m afraid I can’t say more,” Hongbin replies evenly. Despite his nervous movements he’s handling this surprisingly well. Hyuk sometimes forgets that not everyone has stayed stagnant for the last four years the way he has.

She nods firmly, her professional mask starting to fall back into place. Her long graceful fingers smooth a few stray hairs back into her ponytail. “I will do what I can,” she promises them. “But it may take some time. Can I have a copy of this?” She lifts Hyuk’s tablet, clearly meaning the file that he had shown her.

Hyuk nods, accepts the tablet back from her and quickly transfers the file to the other device that she still has in her lap. He won’t tell her now, but that is not all the information he has. He had to keep something back, because no matter how much he just wants for the Black Lung to be eradicated once and for all, he also had to ensure that they couldn’t do it without him.

As soon as the transfer is done, she stands and holds out her hand for them to shake, Hyuk first this time and then Hongbin. “I thank you for your time, gentlemen,” she tells them. “It has been most…enlightening.”

Hyuk replies, “I look forward to working with you,” and secretly delights in the fact that she’s clearly taken aback for a moment. She didn’t expect him to be so confident. She probably didn’t expect to get anything useful out of this meeting at all. But Hyuk is determined to continue proving her wrong. He needs this for so many reasons.

 

\---

 

Ken’s deft fingers fix Hyuk’s tie and Hyuk pretends that he can’t see the glimmer in his eyes. “I’ll miss having you around all day,” Ken murmurs.

Sighing, Hyuk takes Ken’s hands in his and presses a kiss to his knuckles. “I have to do this,” he reminds him.

Acting very put-upon, Ken says, “I know. And I wouldn’t stop you. I know how important it is. Still, I’ll miss being able to duck out for kisses between patients.”

Hakyeon swats them both in the shoulder with the back of his hand. “Unprofessional,” he grumps. “Frankly I’m glad that you’ve found a real job. I’ve been paying you to do nothing for far too long.”

Hyuk sticks his tongue out at Hakyeon. “You’re the one who decided that I was basically acting as your receptionist already and might as well be earning a wage,” he points out.

Taekwoon descends on them, his arms wrapping around Hakyeon’s waist like a particularly insistent limpet. “Stop fighting,” he says. “You’ll get wrinkles.”

“Will not,” Hakyeon retorts. “I’m more metal than man now.”

Taekwoon just snorts.

“Anyway!” Hyuk interjects, throwing his hands up in the air. “I have to get to work. I don’t want to be late for my first day at my big fancy government job.”

“I thought you and Hongbin were going together?” Ken asks, pouting at Hyuk. He was clearly hoping to make out for a few minutes before Hyuk left.

Hyuk shrugs. “I don’t know, he sent me a message this morning saying that something came up and he’d have to come separately.” He cups Ken’s face in both hands and drops a kiss to his mouth. “I’ll come pick you up after and we’ll go get dinner, okay?”

Ken nods, his face still pulled down into a frown. “Be careful,” he whispers.

Hyuk kisses him again, says, “I always am,” and then ducks out of the clinic before he can change his mind about leaving Ken behind.

 

\---

 

The stark concrete walls of the lab building give him an eerie, haunted feeling. They’re just like the walls of every other industrial building in the city, but there’s something about this place…like he’s been here before and doesn’t remember it.

The young man who’s guiding him down to the lab pauses in front of a door and presses his hand against a scanner pad. The heavy metal door slides back and the room that opens up in front of him is full of lab tables and shiny chrome equipment and cupboard after cupboard filled with research samples.

Several people in lab coats look up as Hyuk steps inside. His guide waves kind of vaguely and tells them, “Kim Hyuk, your new colleague.”  He ducks out immediately after, leaving Hyuk alone with a handful of people that he’s never seen before but whose gazes leave him with the same feeling as the hall did.

He bows politely, gives a rote greeting.

They all just continue to stare at him for a moment, but eventually one man stands up from the metal lab stool that he was perched on and comes over, shaking Hyuk’s hand. “It’s great to meet you. I’m Park Chanyeol,” he says. His voice is incredibly deep and he’s quite tall, even compared to Hyuk, who is not a small man. “I’ve read your research; it’s exceptionally done. Where did you study?”

Hyuk hesitates as he pulls his hand away and admits, “I, ah, am self-taught, actually.”

Chanyeol’s eyes go comically wide and he says, “Really? I’m surprised by that, to be honest. Your notes show a very high level of professionalism that I haven’t seen from anyone who doesn’t have at least a Master’s degree.”

“I’m a special case,” Hyuk insists. He can’t get into it. He hopes that Chanyeol will accept that and move on.

He doesn’t. “Did you train with someone? Because uh…your notes actually. They remind me of someone that I used to work with. Yours have the same kind of meticulous detail that his always did.”

“No,” Hyuk says, feeling…odd. He doesn’t like it. “Like I said—self-taught.”

“Oh.” Chanyeol shrugs, backing off. “It’s a shame though. Doctor Han would have loved you.”

Hyuk holds back a snort of disbelief. Something about the name strikes a chord in him and he’s not sure why. “You barely know me.”

“I meant in terms of research. He would have loved to work with you. Hell, just the fact that you made the discovery that he spent his life searching for….” He trails off for a moment, his eyes glistening tellingly. With a rough inhale he says, “Sorry. Just…I miss him sometimes. He was a good man; one of the best I ever worked beside.”

Very, very softly, Hyuk asks, “What happened to him?”

Chanyeol tugs a lab stool over with his foot and drops onto it with a heavy thump. “The Black Lung got him, what else? God, the very disease he was trying to cure took him down in the end. He gave everything up for it, too. He didn’t have family, a spouse, any hobbies outside the lab. The work was literally his life and he didn’t even live long enough to see it through.”

“I’m sorry,” Hyuk says, feeling…disjointed. Chanyeol’s words ring oddly in his ears, like he’s hearing the story told in the wrong voice.

“I was blessed to get to work with him. I just wish that he’d been able to fulfill his dream of making ‘Han Sanghyuk’ a household name.”

There’s a ringing in Hyuk’s ears. He feels his knees meet the concrete floor and it jolts through him but the pain in his head is so much more intense and he can’t seem to focus on anything else. It’s like a movie is playing in his head, his whole life flashing across behind his eyes so quickly that he can’t even follow it.

His hands are shaking and his eyes are unfocused and some part of his brain informs him that Chanyeol is kneeling on the floor in front of him, possibly shouting his name, except that it’s not his name. He’s not Kim Hyuk. He never was.

His name is Han Sanghyuk. He was forty-three years old when he died and he spent his entire life in this very lab, researching the Black Lung because he lost his parents, his older brother, his high school girlfriend and his best friend from childhood and basically everyone he ever knew to it. He didn’t form attachments to people because he firmly believed that if he did he would only be hurt again.

The door opens again, and Sanghyuk turns on autopilot at a touch to his shoulder. Hongbin is there, and his presence is familiar and grounding and somehow he ends up on the floor with Sanghyuk curled into his lap like a small child, _sobbing_ like a small child.

“I was a scientist, Hongbin,” he whispers, his voice a broken rumble. “I had nothing. I died with _nothing_.”

Hongbin rubs his back and wipes away the few small tears that trickle down his cheeks. “Not anymore, Hyuk-ah,” he whispers. “You’re not alone anymore.”

 

\---

 

Hongbin isn’t sure that he’s ever had to hold another man while he cried. In fact, he’s fairly certain that the only person he’s ever really had to comfort like this was his wife, and it’s been so long that he barely remembers how. But Hyuk is shaking the way Hongbin used to, in his worst days, and there are tears running down his face and his breath makes it sound like he was drowning. So he rubs gentle circles down Hyuk’s back and wipes the tears away and tries to make low soothing noises. In truth, he’s imitating Wonshik.

“We were just talking,” a tall man in a lab-coat says, his hands hovering like he wants to comfort Hyuk the way Hongbin is already doing. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what I did.”

“It’s not your fault,” Hongbin tells him. His legs are starting to fall asleep under Hyuk’s considerable weight, but he tells himself not to worry about it because the heaving of Hyuk’s chest is finally starting to calm.

“Is there anything I can do?” the man asks.

Hongbin’s first response is to refuse help, to shoo the man away and hide Hyuk away somewhere that he’ll be safe. But Hyuk is not Hongbin, and though he could probably use a little time alone he doesn’t spurn people as a whole the way that Hongbin does. “Could you get some water, maybe? He’ll need it when he calms down.” Hongbin knows from experience how much crying dries you out.

Hyuk’s hand clenches into a fist in Hongbin’s shirt, wrinkling the fine cotton. He sniffles a few times, loudly, and while the scientist is gone with his task, Hongbin whispers urgently, “Are you alright?”

Tucking his face into Hongbin’s neck, Hyuk replies, “Han Sanghyuk. That’s my name. I’m not a Kim.”

“We never said you had to be,” Hongbin tells him. “You could have been anything you wanted.”

Hyuk— _Sanghyuk_ —shudders a bit. “I didn’t know what I wanted. Everything in me was just this…drive, to finish the work. I didn’t know why, I just…had to do it. God, I can’t believe I died doing it and as soon as I got a second chance at life I just went right back to it like nothing fucking happened.”

“You wanted to make a difference,” Hongbin says. The few other scientists in the room are studiously looking away from them, but regardless he continues to keep his tone low. “And things are different now, Sanghyuk. You’re not alone. Your life doesn’t just revolve around the work anymore.” He doesn’t know if that makes any sense, but from the shivery breath that Hyuk lets out it’s pretty fucking close. Hongbin knows what it’s like to make a job your whole fucking life.

The tall man comes back and offers out a mug full of water. Sanghyuk takes it with shaking fingers and puts it to his mouth, but it’s like he can’t bring himself to drink. Hongbin is familiar with that feeling. He’s probably completely exhausted.

“If you’re not up to working today, you don’t have to,” the man says. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that the subject would upset you.”

Sanghyuk shakes his head. “It’s fine,” he murmurs, his voice rough. “I didn’t know either.”

The man hesitates, and though he swallows thickly and rocks back on his heels and looks like he’s not going to say anything after all, eventually he blurts, “You look a lot like him. Doctor Han, I mean. If…if he were twenty years younger I feel like…I feel like he would have looked like you.”

Hyuk makes a choked whimpering noise and buries his face in Hongbin’s neck again. The sudden movement jostles the mug and slops water onto both their shirts but Hongbin just pulls him closer. He’ll worry about it later.

“God, I’m sorry. I’m just making it worse, aren’t I?” He looks sheepish, scrubbing a hand through his hair. It’s bright firetruck red and beneath it his ears stick out a bit from the sides of his head. It suits him surprisingly well.

“Chanyeol, it’s fine,” Sanghyuk says again. He looks anything but fine and he’s still shaking against Hongbin’s chest, but he clutches the mug in both hands and takes a sip of the water. With the lip of the mug still half in his mouth he mutters, “Honestly, kid, you’re too hard on yourself.”

In front of them, Chanyeol goes very, very still. “What did…what did you say?” he asks.

Hongbin hears Sanghyuk bite down on the edge of the cup and laments the damage it’s probably doing to his perfect teeth. There’s literally no way they can explain this without giving everything away and they both know it. Hongbin feels his palms starting to sweat, the tell-tale clenching in his gut that means that his brain has perceived the situation as a threat. If he doesn’t calm down, pretty soon he’ll be of no use to Sanghyuk.

Sanghyuk maneuvers himself out of Hongbin’s lap and stands, drawing himself up to his full height and staring down his nose at Chanyeol. “You’ve always been too hard on yourself. Everything is a personal failure to you. Even that time I burned myself on a hot beaker because I was an idiot who wasn’t wearing gloves, you somehow managed to make it your fault.”

Chanyeol rises too, and there are tears dripping down his cheeks now and his skin is pink all the way down his neck and to the tips of his ears and in a voice that’s shaking with emotions that Hongbin has heard before he says, “Doctor Han? God, is it really you?”

He envelops Sanghyuk in a hug before he even has a chance to reply, and Sanghyuk just pats his back and smiles indulgently and Hongbin can see how well he fit here. The other scientists are gathering around now, all exclaiming in disbelief and delight and this is bad. Hongbin knows it’s bad but he just can’t bear to say anything, to find a way to stop what’s already been put in motion.

Sanghyuk has found where he belongs and Hongbin can’t take that away from him, no matter what kind of risks that might entail.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on [Tumblr](http://phantomflutist.tumblr.com/) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/PhantomFlutist) for writing updates, spoilers, ranting, and more!


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